


the forest missing the trees

by wafflelate



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gardens, Alternate Universe - No Village AU, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-Split
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-19 10:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22109230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: "You get the other one, we've got this one," says one of the ninja just as Shikako comes close enough to hear them. Most of the ninja stay, but three of them hare off after the ninja who'd run away.Now that that lone, fleeing ninja is away from the others, Shikako can sense for certain that it's a child.This entire situation very abruptly becomes very much her business.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Nara Shikako, Nara Shikako & Uchiha Sasuke, Nara Shikako & Uchiha Shisui
Comments: 37
Kudos: 944
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	the forest missing the trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DekuJade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DekuJade/gifts).



> There are references in this to past events, but mostly they do not refer to pre-existing things except for the vague concept of a "post-Split" Gardens AU, meaning that this work follows the adventures of one of the Shikakos from wafflelate's _The Many Gardens of Shikabane-hime_ who didn't get to go back to the canon universe.
> 
> Anyway, recip, I hope you like!

This time when the light fades and Shikako is standing in the Land of Hot Springs again, she knows it will be the last time. Considering only one of version of her got to go home, this was an extremely likely outcome. Many other versions of her are going through exactly the same thing. Not that that makes it any easier. 

There are only a few untended homes nearby, and fields overgrown with weeds, and absolutely no temple at all. Wherever and whenever Gelel has dumped her, this location was not now and never has been the Village Hidden in Hot Water, and might never be. 

This place isn't just not home — it's nowhere even close. 

Shikako heads south, towards Land of Fire. She gathers enough intel to know that Konoha doesn't exist. There are _no_ ninja villages, except for those villages closely allied with one clan or another. No one has heard of the Nara, either, but that's less alarming — the Nara aren't exactly a high profile clan, and they never did much business so far north or east. 

Will she want to actually join the Nara? Can she make a home with them? She doesn't know. But she knows where to look for them, and having a goal is reassuring, so she goes looking. 

Immediately, and in a manner she should really be used to by now, she finds something else entirely. 

It's a fight like any other fight. Fire jutsu on one side, wind and earth just on the other. On both sides, the tight controlled bursts of ninja pushed to their very limits: pumping chakra through their hands, their mouths, their feet. The fire-using side is very, very outnumbered — maybe a dozen to one — and it's _none of Shikako's business_ , but she angles towards it anyway. It's better to go and see what's happening than to be blindsided later by one side or another, she tells herself, but really anything is better than pointlessly continuing on towards a clan full of strangers. 

The forest is old-growth, with trees more than sturdy enough to navigate with the leaping monkey technique, but they're nothing like the Hashirama trees that should cover this section of the Land of Fire. Shikako has been traveling along them all along, but the ninja she's approaching are all on the ground — occasionally one of them ricochets off a treetrunk, but even when one of the fire-slinging ninja darts off to the west everyone runs along the ground like civilians. Or pre-village ninja. 

It's always weird. Tree-jumping is clearly better. 

"You get the other one, we've got this one," says one of the ninja just as Shikako comes close enough to hear them. Most of the ninja stay, but three of them hare off after the ninja who'd run away. 

Now that that lone, fleeing ninja is away from the others, Shikako can sense for certain that it's a child. 

This entire situation very abruptly becomes _very much_ her business. 

As she closes in on the child hunting party, she sees that the adults are all Sarutobi, proudly wearing their clan mon — this must be Sarutobi land, then — and the child fleeing from them is in dark blue clothing typical of Uchiha. 

Generally, Shikako disables her opponents rather than kill them. Killing people is wasteful and creates enemies, and recently Shikako hasn't exactly had to worry about past opponents showing up later to settle a score. But in this case (when it comes to any form of child hunting, really) the only thing to do is to strike with deadly force. Protecting a child in a fight is hard, protecting them from multiple opponents even harder than that, and _anyway_ anyone who can chase after a child with killing intent as thick as the Sarutobi men below her doesn't deserve to live. 

There are still Sarutobi behind her, subduing the older probably-an-Uchiha. She can't turn back to help that one until this one is safe, so Shikako swoops down out of the trees in a controlled fall, scoops the kid up into her arms, and takes off again. 

She expects the kid to already be too weak to struggle, but the terror of being suddenly snatched up must stir up one final burst of adrenaline because seconds later he's successfully fumbled a kunai into his good hand and tried to ram it through her throat. It's a vicious, desperate move for an eight year old to make, but Shikako appreciates it all the same. It's good that he's willing to do what it takes. She lets go of him except for an iron grip on his ankle and he swings freely beneath her as she leaps to the next tree. He makes the most wretched sound when his kunai slips from his fingers and falls to the ground. 

When she swings him back up into her arms, his heart is beating like a rabbit. His small chakra signal twists and wavers like a candle about to gutter out. It's a chakra signal she knows, now that it's this close. 

She has to find a sunny place to set this kid down and think about how she just killed several adult Sarutobi to save an eight year old Uchiha Sasuke. The next meadow she comes across is speckled and flecked with yellow buttercups, riding the last wave of spring. It's as good a place as any to set Sasuke down and look at him. 

He's filthy. He's wearing some kind of plate armor, better than pre-Village armor but still nearly useless, especially because he's small enough that it practically drowns him. His right wrist is sprained, or maybe broken, and poorly splinted. And, at some point in the remainder of their sprint he's palmed a second kunai and now he clutches it in a white-knuckled grip. There's blood on his face, and tear tracks. 

Just the terrible weight of his gaze makes Shikako feel monsterous for a moment, as if she was the one to put Sasuke in this state. 

She decides to let him keep the kunai this time. 

"Uchiha-kun," Shikako starts. 

Sasuke doesn't wait for her to say anything more. Horror flashes over his face — he's so _young_ ; she can see every emotion plain as day — and then he drives the kunai at his own face. Trying to blind himself and destroy his eyes. 

Shikako's heart leaps into her throat and her shadow surges. She freezes him less than an inch from destroying his eyes, and she can feel him futility struggling against her shadow with everything he has to complete the action. Shikako's stomach rolls. 

Using the shadow puppet technique to control a body the same size or larger than you is harder in terms of power, but easier in terms of finesse. Shikako could hold Sasuke still for hours, probably, so long as she carefully managed her chakra, but making him put a kunai down... 

It would be so easy to accidentally overextend her arm and injure him. So easy to miscalculate. 

Shikako holds him still and creeps forward steadily until she can grab the kunai straight from his frozen hand herself and drop it away into hammerspace. She's close enough then to hear his rapid breathing. To see the whites of his eyes. 

"My clan will come for me," Sasuke tells her, half a threat and half a wish. He'd be shaking if she weren't holding him completely, perfectly still. 

Shikako holds her hands up, palms out, fingers spread. "I'm not your enemy, Uchiha-kun. I'll make sure you get home." 

Sasuke doesn't reply. He only keeps his eyes flicking from her hands to her center mass to her face, trying to watch all of her at once as if he'd have any real chance of seeing a killing blow coming if she didn't want him to. He's not wrong to be wary, either; Shikako doubts that a real Nara from this world would have stepped in to help. 

Especially against the Sarutobi, even with the child hunting. 

Sasuke is too young and too tired and too shaken for Shikako to even begin to consider taking him along when she goes to rescue his older Uchiha teammate, even if Sasuke weren't likely to pull a third kunai on her at the next possible opportunity. This is the kind of situation that really calls for teammates or summons, but...Shikako has neither. She doesn't even have a clear view of where the rest of the Uchiha are. There's really only one possible solution. 

"Sorry," she says, and slaps a knock out tag on Sasuke before he can think too deeply about her apology. 

* * *

A crow swoops in front of Hatake Kakashi, narrowly missing him, alight with chakra in a very distinctive way. Kakashi takes out a kunai — it wouldn't be the first time he's stabbed a bird summons mid-flight and it wouldn't be the last — but the crow doesn't wheel around for a second attempt. Instead, it flutters to a stop on a nearby branch like that was where it intended to land all along, and Kakashi is forced to at last consider that maybe the crow just wanted his attention. 

So Kakashi gives it his attention. But he doesn't put the kunai away. 

"Right," mutters the crow, ruffling its feathers like it's trying to psych itself up for a hard conversation. Then it looks right at him. "Greetings, Hatake-san. I am Kansoku, ally of the Uchiha. My summoner, Uchiha Shisui, requests aid. He..." The crow hesitates. "...he has provided no terms, and I cannot negotiate on his behalf, but the Uchiha value him and you would not go unrewarded." 

"He knew I was here?" Kakashi asks, suspicious. He knows the Uchiha have crow summons — that crybaby clan head's teacher had sent them along to supervise frequently when they were younger and still running into each other all over the Land of Fire — and this crow summons might even be the same "Kansoku" he's met several times, but he has no real way to be sure that the summons really is an Uchiha summons genuinely looking for his aid. 

"He said to find the closest person, 'even if it is that Hatake guy Obito-sama likes'," says Kansoku. "Will you give aide, Kakashi of the Hatake clan?" 

It's probably a bad idea. Pakkun would be _so_ disappointed if he knew Kakashi was even considering it. But...it's really stupid for the Uchiha clan head to be such an easy crier, and there's no doubt he cries over every clanmate he loses. Kakashi is doing everyone a favor by following the crow. 

* * *

Shikako backtracks to where she scooped Sasuke up and then from there finds where the majority of the fight took place. There are a few still-smouldering trees and the ground is drenched with lingering chakra, but the dead bodies have all already been collected. 

It's very easy to follow the path the ninja took back to their clan. Either no one's taught them even the basics of escape and evasion that Shikako learned from Kakashi-sensei before her first chūnin exam or they assumed for whatever reason that no one would want to track them. Both are equally likely and both are incredibly sloppy. 

Or maybe Shikako is just looking for reasons to dislike them. 

The Sarutobi compound is a series of connected houses and courtyards not that different from the compound they would have maintained in Konoha. It sits on the edge of a civilian village — like the Nara or the Akimichi, the Sarutobi had a good deal of direct civilian business contacts even before joining the village — and the compound itself looks more or less like a rich merchant clan's compound. Only Shikako's chakra sense lets her know that the whole compound is crawling with ninja. 

After a lot of trial and error (and error, and error) and with a lot of help from various brief acquaintances (a handful of Sais, a gaggle of Kakashis) Shikako has more or less worked out ANBU-level stealth. Enough to feel confident creeping over the Sarutobi's wall and into their compound. She hides herself from view of anything short of a powerful doujutsu, squishes her chakra way down low, and proceeds with caution. She can feel chakra like a banked fire in the western corner of the compound — definitely an Uchiha — and at least one guard lingering nearby. She can also feel some kind of meeting taking place in a large, central hall. 

She goes to the meeting first. The Uchiha isn't currently being harmed, so Shikako needs information more than she needs to get in and out of the Sarutobi compound quickly. 

In the meeting hall, there are a dozen ninja standing around talking and half a dozen corpses laid out on the floor. Several civilian members of the clan crowd around each body, mourning or making notes or preparing the body for clan rites. Shikako recognizes several of the bodies as opponents she killed while rescuing Sasuke, but others are unfamiliar. 

At least one of the unfamiliar corpses was clearly burned to death by a powerful fire jutsu, so it's evident that Sasuke's Uchiha partner didn't go down easy. 

Shikako settles down on the ceiling above the heads of a group of chatty ninja. She uses chakra to make sure her braid sticks to her back rather than dangle in their faces and her heart continues to pump blood without regard for gravity. Sarutobi aren't known for being sensors and even if someone in the room is a weak sensor, everyone here is too fired up, too busy leaking intent, for small utility jutsu to be even a blip on their radar. 

"We should kill him," one of the ninja is saying, throwing an arm out in the direction of their Uchiha prisoner. 

"The Shimura wants him alive," says another, almost serenely. 

"Then the Shimura should be here to collect _now_ ," says the first ninja. "We don't have enough drugs to keep him sedated for long without the risk of killing him on accident, and he doesn't need hand signals to spit fire. He'll burn the compound down, even if he takes himself with it, just out of spite." 

"You should have focused on the child." 

" _You_ should have gotten off your ass and helped us." 

The argument continues until an old man preparing the bodies for clan rites reminds them to be respectful of the dead. They grudgingly stop yelling at each other and return to concrete details like when the Shimura contingent are expected to arrive to pick up the captured Uchiha. 

No one directly says that the Shimura are after the Sharingan, but Shikako doesn't exactly need it spelled out for her. 

Shikako creeps away when they break to give their joint condolences to several stone-faced widows. She isn't going to let the Uchiha they've got captured actually go to the Shimura. She never intended to leave the Uchiha they've captured here in the first place, but she's _especially_ not going to let an Uchiha get handed over to the Shimura clan in general or to the one Shimura in particular who she suspects is behind this. No, she's going to make sure that Sasuke and his Uchiha partner are long gone by the time the Shimura get here, and then — then she's going to go kill Danzō. Again. Hopefully for the last time, because this world is now hers, for better or for worse. 

* * *

Across the compound, a familiar face: Sarutobi Asuma sits on the genkan of the house where the Uchiha is laying still and drugged, smoking like a chimney and staring blankly out across the garden in front of him. 

Shikako assumes it will be easy to get past him — as easy as it had been to get into the compound, as easy as it had been to get in and out of the meeting room — but she forgets how cunning Asuma is. She forgets that he's wind natured. It's been a _long_ time since she's spoken with any version of him and it's easy to assume that any version of Asuma without the village is a lesser Asuma, as easily duped as the rest of the clan. She forgets that actually, all of the Asumas she's ever met did most of their growing and changing outside the village, away from their clans. 

Which is to say: she doesn't realize he's laced the smoke he's puffing into the air around him with chakra. Ino or Shikamaru might have once mentioned the technique to her in a recounting of one C-rank or another, but why would she have kept that front and center? Shikako assumes that the smoke is just smoke and tries to sneak through it, and Asuma is immediately on his feet, trench knives drawn, looking directly at her. 

At this point it's a waste to keep up the chameleon technique, so Shikako drops it to save on chakra, appearing above Asume clinging to the underside of the eaves. She lets her braid dangle this time. 

They look at each other for a moment. 

She cannot allow him to raise an alarm. 

She doesn't want to kill him, but she might have to. 

Shikako drops to the ground — better not to try flinging herself at him from the air — and pulls a bland tantō she won't care about losing. Maybe she can end this with wounding him or knocking him out, but she has no idea what his combat skills are, so there's no time to mess around. She lunges for him and he uses his trench knives to block her sword, batting her blade away like swatting a fly. She takes a step forward, dangerously close, and tries to swerve around his guard to stab him again. He deflects her with ease a second time. He doesn't try to stab her back. 

Shikako moves back as the magnetism seal she planted on the genken whips her tantō out of her hand and yanks Asuma's trench knives down so hard they embed several inches into the polished wood. It forces Asuma into an awkward kneeling position to prevent any unfortunate consequences for his hands. A handful of shuriken and kunai rip themselves out of Asuma's pockets and pouches, as well as a lighter and a few other miscellaneous odds and ends. 

Asuma smiles at her, like the way a friendly sparring partner smiles when you've bested them. "Guess you can take him," he says. 

Shikako slaps the knock out tag in her hand onto his forehead before she's even processed the words, and then looks down at him. "Huh," she says out loud, and then cancels her magnetism seal as she steps over Asuma to enter the small house. 

From the inside, it's obviously a lesser-used healing clinic, maybe usually used for non-urgent medical appointments if the small package of candy sitting by the entrance is anything to go by. The Uchiha — and it is, of course, Shisui, because it's always Shisui — is laid out unconscious on a raised, padded table to which he's only half-heartedly restrained with what appears to be normal rope. There are three sharp implements within a reasonable distance of Shisui, placed so casually that it can only be deliberate. 

Too bad Shisui is out like a light, firmly drugged and completely unresponsive even when Shikako runs an unsubtle diagnostic jutsu on him. He should really bolt upright and try to murder her for introducing foreign chakra into his system, but he doesn't so much as twitch. 

He is definitely alive, though, and isn't yet poisoned by whatever the hell the Sarutobi are using to keep him out. He even, thankfully, still has both of his eyes. All of his wounds are superficial. 

Shikako raids the room for extra supplies — not taking her time, just whipping whatever's obviously laying around into hammerspace — and then slings Shisui over her shoulder so that they can exfiltrate. When she has to step over Asuma on her way out, she impulsively reaches down and grabs the back of Asuma's shirt with one hand, reinforcing the fabric so she can drag Asuma off the the genkan and into the garden. 

She leaves him face-down in some mulch but this is still, she thinks, a favor to him because she immediately turns around and uses a B-rank fire jutsu to set the building she's just exited _very_ on fire. Then the building next to it, and then the next one. 

The Sarutobi will be able to evacuate and put the fire out rapidly, compared to civilians, but hopefully it will keep them too busy to come after her and Shisui in large numbers. 

* * *

Kakashi and Kansoku don't find the Uchiha summoner. Kakashi is a well-worn pessimist and expected as much, but even he can’t help but be surprised by how bad what they _do_ find is. A child. Unconscious. Surrounded by traps. _Seal_ traps, which don't even have the common decency to be of Uzumaki make. 

"That," Kansoku says, "is Uchiha Sasuke." 

"Ah," Kakashi says. Regrettably, Kakashi has learned a great deal of things about the Uchiha more or less against his will. He knows that Uchiha Sasuke is the youngest son of Obito's favorite cousin, likely in the running to lead the clan if he lives long enough. And Shisui-the-crow-summoner is no doubt the favored student of Obito's favorite aunt, although Kansoku hasn't said as much. 

This isn't anything the Hatake should get involved with — they aren't even formally allied with the Uchiha and this is no doubt dangerous even for a ninja of Kakashi's skill level — but Kakashi prowls the edge of the seals around Sasuke nevertheless, unable to turn his back. It's unlikely that Kakashi's extremely sparse knowledge of Uzumkai seals will do anything against the obvious non-Uzumaki seal traps he can see, to say nothing of any unobvious traps he might miss until they've already sprung, but whoever set the traps will return for Sasuke. Kakashi just has to wait. 

It must be obvious to Kansoku that Kakashi won't be leaving this kid here, as he says, "I'll keep looking," and wings off before Kakashi can ask what for. His summoner? More help? 

The sun sinks below the tree line. To the east a different sort of light starts to paint rising columns of smoke. 

A bush rustles politely. 

Kakashi turns to look at it and a girl steps out of it. A teenager who moves through the bush and into full view with movements deliberately calculated to disturb the bush and cause more noise — it takes her _effort_ to be that sloppy. There's another teenager slung over her shoulder. She's not wearing armor, maybe because she doesn't need it. 

She smiles. "We don't have to fight," she says. "You could leave." 

Kakashi absolutely cannot. He smiles back, nice and friendly. "A little bird told me these two could use a hand, and I promised I'd try my best." 

Several somethings flash across her face. Surprise, relief, suspicion. "Teisatsu?" she guesses. 

Teisatsu is a crow Kakashi has only rarely seen — that's the bird that answers summons when Kansoku can't, the crow with the second-best eyes. A hard name for an outsider to pick up, as infrequently as the crow is called upon, and also obviously not the bird anyone would expect in a situation as serious as this. 

Kakashi knows an identity challenge when he hears it, and he looks at the girl again with fresh eyes. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes. Angling her body just right to sheild the body mass of the person she's carrying, and who could she be carrying in this situation other than Uchiha Shisui? 

The girl must be an Uchiha. 

Or at least, not an enemy. 

Probably. 

"Kansoku, actually," Kakashi says. He doesn't miss the way her shoulders relax. "I've been waiting to see who comes to collect Sasuke-kun. I thought they could probably be persuaded not to." 

The girl's eyes flick from Kakashi to Sasuke, and then back again. She looks mildly embarrassed when she says, "Oh, no, Hatake-san, those are my seals." 

' _Hatake-san,_ ' she says, like Kakashi is someone respectable — what the hell has Obito been _telling_ these kids? — but at least she knows who he is without an introduction. 

"I couldn't take him _with_ me," the girl adds, as if that's obvious, and throws a gesture towards the fire lightening up the eastern sky. 

"Of course not," Kakashi agrees pleasantly. "Take him with you to...?" 

"The Sarutobi had Shisui." The girl comes closer — well within striking range — and sets Shisui down against a tree directly to Kakashi's left. Then she turns her back on Kakashi, facing Sasuke and kneeling to mess with the seals. 

Kakashi watches her work with a good deal of interest and even more caution, but she does seem to be genuinely dismantling the seal traps around Sasuke. Some of them seem to involve genjutsu, because after they're removed it becomes incredibly clear that the clearing had been physically trapped with wire and kunai launches _and_ that Sasuke had actually been three feet to the left of where he had appeared to be. The largest seals are on large, sturdy sheets of fabric or paper, and when the girl deactivates them they roll closed immediately. 

They're incredible tools, and not the kind of thing Kakashi thought the Uchiha could get their hands on, but at least it doesn't appear taking them down requires any skilled work, only a precise burst of chakra. The girl is well-equipped but not, hopefully, the person who actually _made_ the seals. 

"The Sarutobi don't have a history of engaging in bloodline theft," Kakashi observes blandly, just to see what will happen. He expects her to say _publicly_ in that familiar bitter Uchiha way. Practically spitting the word, as if Kakashi is calling her a liar. It's what Obito would have done. 

She says, "They're in bed with the Shimura." She pauses, momentarily occupied with checking Sasuke's pulse and then with picking him up. She turns back around, looks Kakashi dead in the eyes, and says, "I set their clan compound on fire to teach them a lesson." 

"I doubt they learned anything," Kakashi says. 

"They will," she promises ominously. 

At some point the rolled up seals all disappeared to parts unknown, whisked off by some startlingly skilled slight of hand or subtle Uchiha illusion, and now Sasuke is cradled in her arms, just one seal left on him — a tag stuck to his forehead that flutters up and down when Sasuke breathes in and out. She might not be as skilled with seals as Kakashi had feared, but she's dangerous and powerful. The Uchiha have a skill for producing ninja younger than Kakashi but no less of a threat. 

Kakashi gestures at the seal on Sasuke's face. "Not going to remove that one?" 

Her lips twist. "He'll panic if he wakes up. He doesn't recognize me and I don't have a Sharingan to prove I'm on his side." 

And it goes without saying that seeing Kakashi might not relax him, Kakashi supposes. He's heard a lot about Sasuke from Obito, but of course they've never met. But it's strange to think that there are Uchiha that Sasuke _wouldn't_ know. The clan is large, of course, but is it _that_ large? 

Kakashi isn't sure. 

"I can go with you as far as the outer Uchiha patrols," Kakashi offers. He doesn't actually know exactly where the Uchiha settlement is, but he's escorted Obito before and met him on the edge of Uchiha lands. He was even, once, dragged unconscious and half-dead into the relative safety of an Uchiha outpost. 

It's not exactly a short trip to get there, and she can't possibly carry Sasuke and Shisui that entire distance without burning out or having to drop one or both of them to defend herself. The Sarutobi aren't going to take arson laying down any more than they're going to want to just let their captive go. 

"You'll carry Shisui?" she asks, meaning she's done the same math he has. 

"And bring out my summons to escort us," Kakashi adds, unable to keep from pushing the envelope. Obito is probably the only Uchiha dumb enough to agree to that kind of power imbalance, but— 

"Dogs, right?" she asks, lighting up. "I'd love to meet them." 

Kakashi blinks. She must have heard about them from Obito. "Well," he says. "Alright then. I'll summon them and then we can get going." 

He has a better feeling about this, now. Anyone who likes dogs can't be that bad. 

* * *

Shisui is laying on a soft bedroll. The ground underneath him is lumpy, probably full of sticks and pinecones and stuff, but he's so tired he feels like he's laying safely in a feather bed. For a moment Shisui has a sense of peace, just a split second of being warm and dry and laying down when he's so, so tired, and then he realizes a bunch of things all at once: 

This is not his bedroll. 

The last thing he remembers is fighting for his life against a team of Sarutobi. 

He _doesn't know where Sasuke is_. 

It's incredibly tempting to sit bolt upright and try to stab the first person he sees, but no. He can't. He has to be smart about this. He can hear two people talking. A fire crackling. The sound of some kind of utensil being stirred in a metal pot. He's in a camp, a camp equipped with things no reasonable ninja would take on a camping journey. Civilians? _Why?_ Shisui smells damp dog and cooking stew. Someone next to him is breathing soft, even breaths. 

He has to open his eyes. 

At least he still _has_ his eyes. 

Sasuke is right next to him, swaddled in an adult-sized bedroll, kept warm by the bulk of a large ninken who's looking at Shisui and wagging his tail. _Nice doggy_ , Shisui thinks, pleading. There's a seal tag on Sasuke's forehead but Sasuke is _alive_ and if Shisui can just get him away from the dog they can get the fuck out of here and back to the clan and Obito-sama will know what to do— 

The dogs gives a sharp wuff, betraying Shisui completely. The voices by the campfire stop talking. 

Fuck. 

Shisui lunges for Sasuke, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. A voice says, "It's okay, Bull!" and Shisui succeeds instead of getting his face torn off. He can barely get his hands to work, barely find the strength to drag Sasuke towards him, can't lift his cousin or stand at all. Whatever he was drugged with is still in his system and Shisui is _useless_. He can't save Sasuke and he can't save himself. 

Defeated, he looks up at his captors...only to find two people he recognizes looking back at him. Two probably-not-captors people. "Uh," Shisui says awkwardly, looking between Hatake Kakashi and (of _all_ people!) That Girl. "You two know each other?" 

That Girl's lips quirk. "We just met," she says. She looks at him very closely when she says, "You remember me?" 

Shisui nods dumbly. "But you didn't tell me your name," he can't help but whine. 

This time she shows a little teeth, which from That Girl is tantamount to straight up _laughing at him_. Shisui likes her so much. 

"My name is Amago." That Girl says. "Nice to see you again." 

"Hm," says Hatake Kakashi. "That's not what you told me." He's looking lazy, which Obito-sama has said means he's thinking about hurting someone. 

Amago smiles at Kakashi. "Well," she says apologetically, "it's not a very Uchiha name, is it? And I really didn't want to fight." 

"Yes, we wouldn't want that," Kakashi agrees. He looks at Shisui. "Do you trust her?" 

"Yeah," Shisui says, laying back down. He doesn't let go of Sasuke. "She kicked my ass and then she fixed Itachi's leg just 'cause we needed help." 

"I _gently dissuaded_ you from further violence," Amago corrects. "Very gently. You weren't even bruised. Much." 

"Fascinating," Kakashi mutters, and turns away, wandering back across the camp to stir the stew like he knows what he's doing. 

"Is the seal yours?" Shisui asks Amago. "Can — can you remove it?" 

"Oh," Amago says, like she's only just remembered that it's there. "Just pull it off, it's only keeping him asleep. Because, uh, we didn't want to scare him or have to tie him up? And you were out of it." 

"Useful," Shisui says. He pulls it off and, when she doesn't take it back right away, pockets the seal with clumsy motions. It probably gets crinkled, but whatever. "Did Kansoku find you?" 

"He found Kakashi. I sensed you, and I...am not a fan of people who hunt children." By the look on her face, that's an understatement. "And then it was _you_ , so I burned the Sarutobi compound down a little. And ran into Kakashi. We're a day and a half from your clan lands." 

And they didn't want to approach with two unconscious Uchiha, Shisui guesses, which was smart of them. Uzume is usually on border guard and she'd have absolutely murdered them first and asked questions never. 

"Thank you," Shisui says, keeping his eyes on Sasuke's slowly-waking face so that he doesn't look at her and get _emotional_. 

"Any time," she promises. 

Sasuke's eyes open and focus. "Shisui!" he gasps. "Are you okay? Did you get them all?" Only _after_ asking a bunch of loud questions does he look around. When he sees Amago, he draws closer into Shisui's arms, tensing. 

"It's okay," Shisui soothes. "This is my friend Amago. And that's Hatake Kakashi, Obito-sama's friend." 

("Friend," he hears Kakashi mutter incredulously. But he sounds pleased, too.) 

"Oh." Sasuke looks at Amago guiltily. "I tried to stab you." 

Amago waves the apology away. "So did Shisui the first time we met! I have that effect on people." 

"I succeeded in stabbing you," Shisui protests. 

" _Did_ you? Was there blood?" 

There had not been any blood, no. Shisui doesn't dignify her with a response. 

"Is there food?" Sasuke asks. 

Hope is plain on his face. His eyes are desperate and adorable. Shisui glances at Amago. 

"Yeah," she says indulgently. "Go ahead." 

Sasuke scrambles up to his feet, hops over his empty bedroll, stops to pat Bull — the large dog — and darts across the camp to bother Kakashi. 

Amago sits down on Sasuke's vacated bedroll. "There was one favor I wanted, maybe," she says. 

Nothing ever does come free, and Shisui isn't in any shape to argue, but he smiles at her. She had been more than fair last time, and this time she's done even more for him. "More ninja wire?" he jokes. 

"Tempting," Amago says, "you Uchiha have really great ninja wire. The best." If she were a lesser person, Shisui thinks there might have been awkward fiddling. "Okay. Look. I can't go home. It's not — it isn't possible. Do the Uchiha ever let people from outside the clan join?" 

"Sometimes," Shisui says slowly. "Through marriage." 

Amago grimaces. 

"Obito-sama likes new ideas," Shisui adds. "And he really likes Kakashi, and — I mean, maybe it could be different this time. You should come with us and we'll find out." 

It's obviously not the answer Amago had been hoping for, but she still looks a _little_ cheered up. "Okay," she says. "We'll do that." 


End file.
